Note that the "average speed" on many boats included time when they were not moving. On my boat - the Taswell 58 - we raely dropped below 8 kts SOG but did not sail the direct line to Tortola and had zero speed incorporated into our average speed. A better comparison is to look at the uncorrected time with engine hours removed. For example - the Gemini that averaged a knot more than me finished a day later than we did.

Note that the "average speed" on many boats included time when they were not moving. On my boat - the Taswell 58 - we raely dropped below 8 kts SOG but did not sail the direct line to Tortola and had zero speed incorporated into our average speed. A better comparison is to look at the uncorrected time with engine hours removed. For example - the Gemini that averaged a knot more than me finished a day later than we did.

So, in short, this is a meaningless bunch of numbers... but will likely be quoted widely to support a variety of arguments!

Note that the "average speed" on many boats included time when they were not moving. On my boat - the Taswell 58 - we raely dropped below 8 kts SOG but did not sail the direct line to Tortola and had zero speed incorporated into our average speed. A better comparison is to look at the uncorrected time with engine hours removed. For example - the Gemini that averaged a knot more than me finished a day later than we did.

Fair enough. The website doesn't give the corrected times you mention, though.

The transponders on some of the boats were on a day or two before departure. The segment speed was accurate, because it was based on the prior 4 hour segment, but I think the overall average included the 4 hour segments when the boats were at the dock. The speed for the segment would be less than actual because of tacks etc. It's really more of a VMG measurement, with the end of each segment being the "destination".

In my experience, it's been mostly off the wind sailing, although one year we spent several days on a close reach in Force 8 & 9 conditions. The seas tend to present a challenge that time of the year, with the wind-driven swells being crossed by one or two sets of waves from different directions. So a significant part of the boatspeed actually achieved depends on the boat's inherent "comfort level" in those conditions, and how hard the crew chooses to push. Our Island Packet tended to perform pretty well in those conditions, and we beat a number of "faster" boats that slowed down somewhat to avoid the pounding, wet ride, strain on the autopilot, etc.

The posted average speeds are not accurate. Do not know how data posted was compiled, but we were one of the J46's and our elapsed time was 178.1 hours to sail 1487 nautical miles per our log. This is an average speed of 8.349 knots. All the transponderw were on when given to the participants and were not turned off at the finish. They continued to report for many days after the finish, as many transponders were not turned in for several days after finishing.